Technical analysis of the Williams FW30

By Craig Scarborough Monday, January 21st 2008, 15:45 GMT


In keeping with the team's money efficient style, Williams' new car was rolled out without fanfare at the FIA test at Valencia this morning.

Technical director Sam Michael has described the car as an evolution.

Last year saw the team make a return to both pace and reliability after a low point in their fortunes in 2006. Their FW29 was a neat, drag-efficient car, with a good reliability record.

With such a sound basis, to start their new car from the evolutionary approach should work for the team.

Looking at the new car, the similarity to its predecessor is obvious. The team have a number of new elements to the car and completed a similar amount of work in the detail and quality under the skin.

Weight distribution has been addressed, not officially stated, but no doubt the car has a more forward weight bias to suit the Bridgestone tyres. At this point the team feel the car is a "good step forward."

At the front a new three-element front wing adopts a conventional format - the wing itself being hung from its forward element, unlike the larger McLaren-like front wings. However, the this does follow McLaren's lead with a bridge wing: the new lower nose cone allows the bridge element to be tidier than the version raced late last year.

The nose cone also features quite large flow conditioners, routing the flow over the front suspension, one of which mounts on the FIA TV camera.

Around the front wheels, the inner brake ducts continue Williams' organically shaped duct with three inlets to feed the disc and calliper. While outside the wheel, the static fairings tried in testing have yet to appear.

Bargeboards and sidepods retain a similar shape, but the sidepods do gain new POD wings for the first time. These are quite simple versions and are joined with the chimneys slots half way up the endplate.

Equally the chimney they are attached to is new, eschewing the large side exit chimneys of recent Williams. Instead, the chimneys are slim vertically exiting designs, no longer joined to the T-wings, which are mounted on their own supports.

On the roll structure above the new cockpit padding is a revised mid wing, which is now swept back creating a trailing tip.

[www.autosport.com]

from what I read somewhere a while ago, fw29 wheelbase was 3100mm too...so no change at all...most teams (except Ferrari) went for abit longer wheelbase this year.